Messages - Gribble

If you have a thermometer on the outlet of your plate chiller, you can go straight into the fermenter and with the valve on the outlet of the chiller dial back the flow until you reach close to your fermentation temp. I use a blichmann therminator and can pull it down to 65F even in the summer, in E WA, while transferring in 15 - 20 min.

Myself I prefer the HERMS style of brewing mainly because I can use the heat exchanger for hot and cold. I really like Stout Tanks products and use their 23 gallon conical fermenters. John at Stout Tanks is also really flexible if you need something custom made. If you want to check out my system go to http://www.facebook.com/greatnorthwesternbrewbaron

I just got my first SS Conical and I love it, It's a Stout Tanks 23g and the only complaint that I have about it is that it did not come with a racking arm, sold seperately for 39.99. It is great for doing 20g batches and it still fits in my cabinet freezer for conditioning.

This is my setup for a keg washer, it does two kegs at once including the liquid line. It is all 1/2" pipe using 1/2npt - 1/4" hose barb as nozzles. The sink is setup to recirc so I can add pbw or sanitizer and run through the kegs and a hose fitting so I can rinse the kegs.

The 15g Conicals were purchased from TankDepot.com http://www.tank-depot.com/productdetails.aspx?part=A-INFD15-19 the racking valve is from LD Carlson the whole setup cost around $225. I have never had a problem with o2 permeability. They are MDPE and around 1/8" thick. I use standard pvc valving in the bottom to go down to a 1" ball valve. The racking valve is 1/2" OD which is great for racking with a 1/2" tube going to a 1/2" swivel fitting to my liquid ball lock QD.

I think if you wanted to make the cheap version of a beer gun is to take a bottle wand and attach it to your liquid side of the keg, basically a beer gun set up. Keeping your bottles cold before bottling helps reduce foaming as well. I keep the sanitized cases in my keg freezer before i bottle, when there's room

Correct, a Ranco 2 stage you can get wired for around $80 that comes with a single gang dual receptacle one wired hot the other cold, the single temp probe runs both stages, you can set the set point on both as well as the temperature differential at which you'd like the stage to kick in. These are really cool ETC's I use on on my herms system to run the pumps for the mash.

I have 5 of these [url]http://www.tank-depot.com/productdetails.aspx?part=A-IN0015-19[/url outfitted with racking arms and valves in the bottom. They work great and fit perfectly in a medium size cabinet (upright) freezer. Great for cold crashing and lagering.

I personally wouldn't worry about the faucet locks, if you're disconnecting your kegs and locking the keezer. I completely agree with bo about the hasp and padlock. 20 bucks vs 45 a pop for faucets locks.

When I ran a homebrew shop the biggest thing that people wanted/needed was a way to regulate fermentation temp as it is the hardest thing for homebrewers to control. a small chest freezer outfitted with a temp controller works for the summer, you can find something online for usually 50 bucks. as far as affecting your final product it is vital. and not only will you be able to hold your ferm temp but you can also use it to cold crash your beer just like the pros. A chiller is easy to make and usually cost about 30 bucks. 25' of 1/4 or 3/8 tubing fifteen feet of tubing and a 3/4 hose to barb fitting is all you need.